NFL announces rookie salary pool

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By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com
Rookie salary pool
Following are the rookie pool numbers, the maximum amount of cap room franchises can invest in draft choices and free agents, for each NFL team:
Team Picks Pool
Detroit 11 $5,551,658
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The Detroit Lions, who had the second overall selection in last weekend's draft and also exercised the second-most choices in the lottery, have been awarded the largest "rookie pool" number in the league, ESPN.com has learned.

Detroit will be able to spend a maximum of $5,551,658 in cap room on its 11 draft picks and any undrafted free agent players that it signs, according to NFL Players Association documents obtained on Thursday by ESPN.com through league sources. The Lions, who chose Michigan State wide receiver Charles Rogers, in the opening round, are one of five franchises awarded a rookie pool in excess of $5 million.

Cincinnati, which had the first overall choice and has already signed Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer to a contract, has a pool number of $5.238 million, which is the fourth highest in the league.

The rookie pool is, essentially, a cap within a cap. A team's rookie pool allocation is part of, not an addition to, the league's $75.1 million spending limit.

The formula for deriving each team's rookie pool allocation is regarded as Byzantine, not understood by most franchise officials, and is a function of how many picks are exercised by a team and where those picks are made. In addition to the second overall choice in the first round, for instance, Detroit selected high in every stanza, and had extra picks in the fifth and seventh rounds.

Those factors all combined to give the Lions a high rookie pool allocation.

Two of the teams with rookie pool awards of over $5 million each, Chicago (No. 2) and Baltimore (No. 2), both exercised a pair of first-round selections. Beyond having two first-round picks, the Bears also chose a league-high 12 prospects in the two-day draft.

Not surprisingly the Washington Redskins, who had a league-low three draft choices, also have the lowest rookie allocation, at $1,214,480. The Redskins used four draft choices as compensation for signing restricted free agents away from other teams and a fifth choice to acquire tailback Trung Canidate from the St. Louis Rams in a trade.

Washington is one of three teams with a rookie pool award of less than $2 million, and the three clubs totaled just 15 choices among them, and none had a selection in the first round of the draft.

For 2003, the total rookie pool is approximately $118.5 million, or an average of about $3.7 million per franchise. The total pool is commensurate to that of last year, and will make it difficult for agents to negotiate substantial increases for draft choices. The pool has been basically "flat" for two years now, under agreement of the NFLPA and league officials, with the intent to funnel more compensation to veteran players.

Around the country, as agents received the rookie pool numbers for the teams where they had players selected, they were scrambling to compare this year's numbers to those of '02 and to begin plotting strategy to squeeze out at least respectable increases.

Eighteen teams this year received rookie pool allocations above the league average.